Advena
by aadarshinah
Summary: Terra isn't what Iohannes expected. #10 in the Ancient!John 'verse, with nessicary SG-1 crossover; John/Rodney, Jeannie/Kaleb, Sam/Jack
1. Pars Una

__Advena__

An Ancient!John Story

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><p><em>Pars Una<em>

* * *

><p>He could ignore the dreams on Atlantis. It was easy there. He had too much to do – try to track down a charged <em>potentia,<em> defend the city from the Wraith, restore the city to her former glory, _et cetera et cetera_ – to pay much attention to the dreams that plagued him endlessly, especially when he could barely remember them on waking.

It's harder on Terra, though. Atlantis isn't here, for one, to soothe him with her song or yell at him when she thinks he's being an idiot. He can't even wander the halls aimlessly because, try as he might, he can't ignore the armed guards who've been assigned to _escort_ him from meeting to meeting until the Terran government can do an adequate _risk assessment_ on his presence in this galaxy, or the endless stretches of concrete, broken only by doors you have to open manually and the occasional self-aggrandizing placard.

Here, it's just easier to sulk in his guest quarters, one of those awful doors separating him from the eyes of his watchdogs, even if it forces him to think overmuch on the dreams he cannot help but remember here, with little else to occupy him. Dreams of a silence so loud the memory of it echoes in his ears.

To this end, Iohannes is lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and trying to avoid sleep (or thinking about sleep, or dreams, or how much he hates these stone walls, or how good it would be to see the ocean again) when there's a knock at the door.

(The first time this happened, Iohannes hadn't realized it for what it was and his hands had gone for the gun that wasn't strapped to his thigh, as it would have been if he was at home, with people who trust him implicitly. He's still not used to it's missing weight.)

There's another knock, but Iohannes makes no more move to answer it than he did the first. He may be going stir-crazy, staying in this room with his dark thoughts, but it's better than the alternative. The Terrans outside his door may not have deified his race, but they've surely sanctified it, thinking _The Ancients_, as they still insist on calling them, to have been far better people than they actually were. As if scientific and moral advancement went hand-in-hand.

Doctor Jackson, oddly enough, is the most insistent in this belief – a fact that Iohannes finds desperately worrisome, considering he's the one, or so he's been told, who spent a year Ascended. It's probably him at Iohannes' door now, come to ask once more about about details of Alteran history Iohannes himself can't give a damn about, not even now, when he's the last Alteran in the universe. The worst part of it all is that it's so clear that the other man means well, and is so excited to met a _real, live Ancient_ that he's not realized his questions aren't welcome.

Archaeologists.

The knocking eventually stops and Iohannes continues to stare at the ceiling, waiting for this terrible eternity to end.

* * *

><p><strong>an**: So, there's a lot I want to put in this fic, so it'll sorta be a multichapter, vingette-ish thing. _Advena_ is _Foreigner, _in this case specficially in honour of CJ Cherryh's wonderful series of the same name.


	2. Pars Dua

__Advena__

An Ancient!John Story

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><p><em>Pars Dua<em>

* * *

><p>"Murder," John announces, setting his tray down with unnecessary violence before sliding into the seat across from him in the SGC commissary, "is a highly-overrated problem-solving technique." The notebook he's also carrying is set down with more restraint, but only, Rodney suspects, because it's not heavy enough to convey the proper emotion.<p>

"Have a lot of experience, do you?"

"I dunno. Depends on how you define murder, I guess."

Indignation rising on Jon's behalf, "They can't seriously still be going on about that, can they?" he huffs. Most of their first day back, after everyone back at the SGC (and the representatives from the Pentagon and the IOA) had finished _oh-_ and _ah_-ing over their _real, live Ancient_, had been spent with John answering heated questions about why he'd shot the Expedition's military commander. "Even Colonel Everett said it was the most merciful thing to do." _And Everett_, he doesn't add, _is in the position to know._

"For Sumner, yeah. For Ford... not so much."

Rodney can't help but shudder at that. He'd liked Ford, even if the young lieutenant had always reminded him of a puppy from one of those larger dog breeds – all limbs and too much energy, and wanting to please his superiors oh so much. He hadn't deserved to be shot full of enzyme when the Wraith that was trying to feed on him was killed. He hadn't deserved to be shot three times in the chest either, but he _had_ been trying to gate off Atlantis when doing so might have meant their ruse (a nuke and a shield-turned-cloak) might've failed.

"You did what you had to do," he manages after less than half-a-beat too long. "Isn't that what you said is most important? Doing what has to be done?"

"Yeah." John says glumly, more glumly than he had the day he'd first introduced Rodney to this saying, and it's at moments like this one when he actually hates Janus, despite the genius clearly evident in the notes they've so far been able to decipher. He imagines that, in the moments Janus actually took to be a father, John's childhood was filled with a lot of lectures about _doing what you have to do. _"But that doesn't mean I have to like it."

"No one who knows you would ever claim that."

Rodney gets a wry grin for that. "Then the people here obviously don't know me very well."

"You are, for all intents and purposes, an alien_._ You should be glad they don't want to haul you off to Area 51 and vivisect you."

"You do that here?" John asks, his raised eyebrow and casual tone undermined somewhat but his sudden pallor.

"No. But it's what the public thinks goes on at Area 51. That's mostly research and development – it's where I was, mostly, before we started looking for Atlantis. What vivisection happens usually happens here."

John chooses not to comment on this last, even if he is attacking his eggs with unusual enthusiasm, and asks instead. "And what did you do there? I don't think you've ever said."

_And you've never said_, Rodney wants to point out, _what you did before we arrived, _but doesn't on the grounds that he's been having a bad enough week without his whatever-you-want-to-call-him interrogating him in strange lunch rooms. John's guards report he's been spending most of his free time in his guest quarters, and John quiet and brooding, as he certainly is, is never a good sign. "Studied the Stargate, mostly. That and whatever other An- Alteran technology we could get our hands on. Not much, really, until General O'Neill found the Antarctic Outpost."

There's silence for long enough that Rodney thinks John's forgotten they're having a conversation, that he's lost in his own world of loneliness and guilt. He wants to suggest a movie night, or that they use John's rooms for something other than brooding, but he knows it's impossible at the moment. There's no crisis, no rush, but they've barely the time to eat with all of the _briefings_ they've scheduled with the various representatives of the IOA who've descended upon Cheyenne Mountain. It's a minor miracle that they've managed to find time to eat together at all, and he wishes to a god he doesn't believe in that they didn't have to waste any of it with long silences filled with things they could say if they were anywhere but here.

"I'd like," John says at last, "to see it."

"The outpost?" Rodney hums. It'd been an interesting place, but Antarctica is still Antarctica, and hardly the first place he'd suggest a visitor from another world check out. "You'll have to ask General O'Neill about it."

"I did. He told me that, every time he goes to Antarctica, he nearly dies, that I'm an idiot for wanting to go there, and that anyway it can't be managed until the _Prometheus_ gets back from Dakara, which should be well after we're on our way back to Atlantis."

"Why can't it _be managed_? There's got to be at least two planes a week going between Peterson and McMurdo, if you don't mind riding on a cargo plane."

The look on John's face says everything about his position on _riding_ in an aircraft of any sort, but he just shrugs as if it say, _it's your planet, _and fiddles with his fork. "Something about problems creating a fake identity for me."

"Really?"

"Apparently the other IOA nations don't like the idea of _the last Ancient in the universe_ being beholden to one country's military," he says, using the same tone of voice he gets when forced to acknowledge that Rodney's tablets are state-of-the-art computers, _thank you very much_, and the fact that a P90 is a lot more effective against the Wraith than the Ancient _arca_ they've found on Atlantis.

"Can you really blame them?"

"I can if it means I'm stuck underground for much longer. It's starting to remind me of the siege – the first siege, – only then you could look out the windows and see ocean. I was," he muses, suddenly wistful, "ten years old before I saw the sky."

There's really nothing Rodney can say to that. "So," he tries instead, "they're going to make you a real officer then, the Air Force?"

"That's what I've been told. Apparently being a _legatus _in the Lantean Guard isn't good enough for them."

"It's not if you ever hope to leave this base. Hey, don't look at me like that. You know full well that Earth isn't like Pegasus; people here don't just pop out of thin air, without any sort of history or background or knowledge of Earth at all."

"We didn't build the _portae_ to be kept as governmental secrets."

"_You_ didn't build the Stargates at all."

John shrugs at this. "Tell that to the IOA. And Homeworld Security. And the SGC. And maybe everyone in the Pegasus Galaxy. Given the odds, you might actually find someone who believes that."

"_You're_ the one who likes to pretend his IQ is at least sixty points lower than it actually is," Rodney points out, noticing as he does John's eyes darting to the notebook he's left on the table as he says it, then quickly away.

Before John can protest, Rodney snatches it from across the table and flips it open to a random page. It's only about a quarter full, but the pages that _do_ have writing on them appear to be equations. Opening it again to the beginning and glancing through the first couple of pages, he can only gape as he realizes what it must be before turning back to the beginning and reading more closely, "This is the solution to the Riemann Hypothesis, isn't it?" He doesn't wait for John to answer, or even look up; he just turns the page. "Not just _a_ solution, but _the_ solution, the one that works in all situations, for all equations. You know what this means, don't you?"

John's looking at him amusedly when he finishes, like he'd been waiting just how long it would take Rodney to notice the notebook all along, the bastard. "That the IOA will lay off on me for a bit?"

"You are a total and complete idiot if you honestly think the IOA will do anything of the sort. If anything, they'll probably try to pick your brain worse than they already are. We Earthlings have only been trying to solve this problem for the better part of a century and a half, you know, and if they think you can give them the answers to the universe, who knows what lengths they'll resort to. I mean, they _claim_ to respect the UN and the Geneva Convention and all that, but, then again, according to the UN, they don't exactly _exist_ now do they?"

"Huh," John says going back to his eggs. It's at times like this that Rodney rather wonders how much of what he's saying John understands.

Still, he continues to flip through the notebook. Some of the pages are filled with neat lines of Alteran numbers, others with the same proof carefully translated into base ten maths, the Earth numbers wobbling across the page. "But, seriously, you know what this means, right?"

"That Colonel Carter will be able to solve that problem she's been working on about the _f_iniens__ eventis__ of the __pons astris___?"_

Rodney doesn't even want to know how John knows about that (it's something Samantha's been working on on-and-off for the past five years, and mostly been unable to make any progress on because it's not like she or anyone else in the SGC really has the time to devote to something that, in the long run, really doesn't matter so long as the Stargates keep working as they always have). "John, if the rest the world had any idea of the use of this formula in wormhole physics, you'd have a Nobel. But, since they don't, this'll get you a Fields Medal, no problem. Not quite as good, but it's still the best a mathematician can do."

John shrugs. Again. It rather makes Rodney wonder if he ever understands the significance of anything he does. "I think leave that sort of thing to you."

_"___Fields Medal___," _he repeats.

"It's no big deal, really, Rodney. It was either that or stare at the ceiling some more."

"I can see the acceptance speech now: __I was bored, so I decided to try my hand at the most important unsolved question in pure mathematics. __That's bound to go over real well."

John rolls his eyes, than holds out his hand for the notebook. "Well, my minders are tapping their watches, so I guess that means I'm overdue for another _briefing_ with the IOA representatives, or, if they're feeling merciful today, a raking over the coals."

"Oh, no. You're not taking this with you, drama queen. If I've got to pay attention to their questions, so do you."

"They're worse than the Council."

"Into every life, bureaucracy must fall. But, seriously, I'll talk to Sam. See if she can't get them to hurry things along. They're talking about letting the rest of us get out of here on Friday. They can't keep you longer than that, even if you are a _great and mighty Ancient_."

Snorting, "Yeah. And Atlantis was built in a day." John looks like he wants to say something further, but a glance at the Marines who've been assigned to guard him (who've been waiting patiently by the main entrance to the mess, but who are now starting to get that antsy look over-eager Marines get when what they'd doing is in violation of direct orders, even if it just means John'll be five minutes late to whatever meeting he needs to be at. It reminds Rodney uncomfortably of Ford, who is twenty-six and dead and will never be anything than that over-eager lieutenant ever again) reminds them they don't have the time. "Talk to you later, Rodney."

Rodney waves at him to hurry up before the Marines have puppies and goes back to the notebook, wishing to hell they were on Atlantis, where they could eat together like normal people, and John wouldn't be forced into to doing math proofs to stave off boredom. Even if it was the Riemann Hypothesis.

* * *

><p><strong>an**: I've been asked to post this series in one massive fic, but I really do consider this series to be a, well, series of related installments, like episodes - seperate from each other, but part of the same overarcing narrative. If you want the whole collected works, in order, it's set up that way over on AO3, and there's a massive organizational post on my lj. My penname is _aadarshinah_ on both as well.


	3. Pars Tria

__Advena__

An Ancient!John Story

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><p><em>Pars Tria<em>

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><p>"I know it's a pain, but I've got to make sure you know your cover story, so let's just go over it one more time," Colonel Carter says, grinning at him over a sheaf of papers in her lab. It, like the rest of the base, is a windowless cement square, and is stock full of what sadly qualifies as hi-tech on this planet, and, after six days underground, Iohannes is about ready to try his hand at Ascension again if it will let him see the sky.<p>

"Again?"

"John," she admonishes, sounding uncomfortably like his __Matertera __Catalina.

"I've already gone over this with Major Davis-"

"John-"

"-and I get that this whole __Terra is alone in the universe___ thing _is important to you guys, but, really, what's the likelihood that anyone's going to interrogate me on my life history while I'm here?"

Colonel Carter bites her lip, ducks her head, and looks for all the world like she's trying not to laugh. "Aren't you going with Rodney to Vancouver?"

"Yeah. He wants to visit his sister." John doesn't see the connection.

"And you __don't__ think you're going to be interrogated to within an inch of your life? Consider it practice for your Fields Medal."

Iohannes sighs. If he'd realized just how important the equation was to the Terrans, he'd have let them figure it out themselves, even if it's going to take him a few more weeks to finish. It's just, when he'd gotten the idea (and he still can't say how he got it; he could only assume it was somehow related to the three minutes he'd spent Ascended and the niggling in the back of his mind that makes him think there's something important about Sam he's forgetting), he couldn't stand the thought another night spent staring at the ceiling of his guest quarters and trying not to think. And trying to figure out a proof in base ten, with the limited knowledge of maths Terra has now, had seemed like a nice distraction. "Fuck the medal," he says. "If I have to go through this one more time, I'm going to start believing I __am__ Major John Sheppard, United States Air Force."

With a slight, disproving frown, "After you sign these papers," she gestures with the folder in her hand, "you __will__ be Major John Sheppard, United States Air Force."

Snorting, "You know what I mean. Not the Air Force thing, but the whole, __I'm John Patrick Sheppard of Sausalito, California __part of it. And what kind of name is Patrick anyway?"

"The name of your father."

"My father's name was Ianus Ishachidus Ianitos Rector."

"Your fake father," she points out dryly.

"Yes, yes, I know. But how do you get __Patrick__ out of __Ianus__?"

"We didn't."

"Of course you didn't," Iohannes sighs, putting his elbow on the worktable and propping his chin in his fist. "Because that would just be too easy. Fine. Fire away."

"Well, we've already ascertained you know your name and your hometown. And," she adds, getting that __I'm trying not to laugh__ look again, "that you've spent more time with Rodney than is probably healthy. So when were you born?"

"June 14, 1970," he says dully. He doesn't point out that this would make him younger than Rodney. It probably makes him younger than Colonel Carter too, which is annoying. Iohannes isn't sure why that might be, it just is, and he attributes it to the __I've forgotten something important__ feeling he gets whenever he spends too much time around Sam.

"College?"

"Stanford."

It goes on like this for a while – there are a frightful lot of details ones needs to know to live on Terra, half of which it would probably be easier to make up on the fly, and the rest of which it will never matter that they've gone to the trouble of making up because he's no plans on staying on this planet for long enough for a __driving record__ or __credit history__ to matter – but, at last, Colonel Carter hands over the enlistment papers, backdated eighteen years, and he's officially a member of the United States Air Force.

Iohannes runs a hand through his hair and breathes a sigh of relief.

"Not so fast, solider," she says with a laugh. "I've got a few more for you to sign."

He groans.

"Ah, but these are easy."

"Nothing on this planet is ever __easy__."

Colonel Carter rolls her eyes. "Now I __know__ you've been spending too much time with Rodney."

"He's a good guy," Iohannes says defensively. He's getting to the point where he honestly thinks half his problems with this planet are because of Rodney – how they talk about them, how they have to hide their relationship; how he's barely seen him twice since gating here.

"He's a great scientist, possibly the best alive," she tries to correct, "but being a good scientist is a far cry from being a good person."

Iohannes has heard the story of Rodney's first visit to the SGC – it's whispered in the shadows wherever he does, like a condemnation that cannot be shaken – and even he has to admit it doesn't paint the most flattering picture. But, "The hardest thing in life is doing what is right rather than what you wish to be right."

"Is that an Ancient proverb of some kind?"

He shrugs. It'd been something Father was fond of saying, particularly regarding some of his more extreme experiments. Like all things, it can be twisted to serve any need.

"You know, John, just when I've started to forget who you are, you've a tendency to go and say things like that."

"Things like what?"

"Y'know, _meaning of life _stuff."

Iohannes groans and lets his forehead rest on the tabletop.

"Don't worry. I promise I won't tell Daniel. _If _you finish this paperwork for me."

"You are a cruel, evil woman, Samantha Carter." _No wonder_, the thought follows unbidden, _General O'Neill was willing to risk his career for you_.

Colonel Carter's already laughing at this, saying something Iohannes isn't paying much attention to about whatever papers he has to fill out now, before this thought catches up with him. When it does, he about falls out of his chair, he sits up so fast. Another memory from his three-minute Ascension? Iohannes isn't sure, but, if so, why, of all things, would he remember _that_?

"I know something you don't know," Iohannes says as they walk towards what he's been told is the final set of doors between him and the outside world.

Rodney snorts, "Doubtful," showing a plastic card to the solider standing guard before passing through the last checkpoint.

Iohannes does the same, earning a _sir_ and respectful nod in the process, and follows after, emerging into fading sunlight and a glorious expanse of open sky that makes him forget what he'd been going to say until Rodney elbows him and mouths _hat_.

He frowns at the hat he's carrying under one arm. Doctor Jackson has insisted on having Elizabeta, Carson, Rodney, and Iohannes join him and the other members of SG-1 currently on Terra for dinner before allowing them to go on their respective leaves, and apparently the place that's been chosen qualifies as _fancy_. Which in turn means that he'd had to get dressed up in the fanciest of the uniforms he's been presented with – the dark blue one with too many buttons and a series of coloured bars on the front that he doesn't know the meaning of but certainly can't have earned. Of course, it's also meant that Rodney's had to get dressed up as well, which is no bad thing, only that it seems to have put him in something of a foul mood.

"It's only hair, John," Rodney says after what must qualify as too long a delay, taking the hat from him and jamming it on Iohannes' head as best he can without looking at him too closely. He can only surmise it makes him look even more ridiculous than he already feels. "Come on then. Let's get this over with before they try to drag you back."

Iohannes follows blindly for a few minutes, choosing instead to stare up at the darkening sky all the while, before it even occurs to him to ask, "How are we getting to this place anyway?"

"Well, I _was_ going to rent us a car for the drive up to Jeannie's, but then I figured it would be easier in the long run just to buy something and keep it here for whenever we're called back next, and it's not exactly like I don't have the money for it..."

"Rodney."

"I might have ended up buying a Lotus Elise."

He raises an eyebrow and waits for the explanation.

"Yes, right; that doesn't mean anything to you. Well, it's a car. Obviously. A roadster – convertible, 'cause I know how much you hated being underground all this last week. Can go from zero to sixty in four point seven seconds with a top speed of one hundred fifty, which I know doesn't sound like much to a guy who's go-to vehicle can go one-fourth the speed of light, but it's the fast I could find on short notice. And, well, the colour is a bit much, but, like I said, short notice, and, well, yeah." He gestures at a bright yellow vehicle a few yards away from them. "I know you can't exactly drive it, but we have a week or so before we're expected at Area 51, so you'll probably have time to learn, and, well, this is probably the worst car in the world to learn to drive on, but I thought you might enjoy it after you learned and, er-"

Iohannes knows nothing about cars. Truth be told, he could care less about it at the moment. All he knows is that he's spent the last week in a windowless hole with descendants who thought him a saint and murderer by turns, barely able to talk to anyone from Atlantis, let alone spend five minutes alone with Rodney, and all he wants to do is kiss him because he bought this car with him in mind and, now that they're out of that forsaken cement maze with it's dozens of cameras and hundreds of disproving eyes, he can. And, since he can, he does.

"John-" he tries to protest, but then Iohannes is sliding one hand around the back of Rodney's neck and slipping the other around his waist, and he gives into it. A hand comes up to clutch at the front of his too-new uniform jacket, pulling him closer as Rodney tries to manoeuvre them to the car. For the life of them, Iohannes can't say how, but somehow they make it, and then it's Rodney pressed against the side of the car and him pressed up against Rodney, hands finding their way beneath coat jackets, trying to make up all the moments like this they've missed since first hearing about the Wraith armada all at once, and even he doesn't know how far they might've gone right there, up against the car, if not for the loud and pointed cough that came a some indeterminable amount of time later.

"You know," says the man, who, as soon as the blood starts returning to his head, he identifies as General O'Neill, "Daniel will kill you if you're late to his dinner thing."

The speed with which Rodney pushes Iohannes away verges on the superluminal.

"I-" Rodney starts, voice an octave too high, "Er- General O'Neill, fancy seeing you here."

"Yeah, well," the _praetor_ gestures at the truck the Elise is parked next to. "Nice car, though. New?"

"Er. Yeah. I mean-"

"You should be careful to lock it. The security cameras in this lot have been on the fritz for days now and you don't want something like that stolen."

"Er-" Rodney says again.

Jumping in before Rodney can say anything he'll be mortally embarrassed about later, Iohannes adjusts his jacket and promises the _praetor_, "We'll keep that in mind."

"Cool," he says, climbing into his car. "See you guys later." And, with that, he drives away, leaving Rodney still gaping.

"You know," Iohannes says after a moment, "for a descendant, General O'Neill's not that bad."

"Not that bad? _Not that bad_? He just-"

"Drove off. Very cool. Makes me kinda hope that Carson's right about most people with the _Ancient gene_ being like the four-hundredth great-grandchildren of whatever kids Father had here on Terra after the Exodus. I don't think I'd mind having General O'Neill as a nephew. Which reminds me-"

Rodney slaps him on the back of his head and tells him to get in the car before he does anything else to jeopardize his new career before they're even out of the car park.

* * *

><p><strong>an: **we'll catch up with "Fratres et Sorores" by the end of next chappie, promise. Oh, and I've been told that the math proof John's working on won't have as big of an impact on wormhole phsyics as I'm claiming, but I'm suprised enough to know that it has _any_ impact that I've decided it doesn't matter, and that Stargate wormholes are different from natuturally occuring ones, thus needing the proof... somehow.


	4. Pars Quattor

__Advena__

An Ancient!John Story

* * *

><p><em>Pars Quattor<em>

* * *

><p>"I was right," John says when they stop for gas on the other side of the Wyoming border, apropos of nothing. They've been driving in fairly comfortable silence since leaving the restaurant, John alternating between watching the towns they pass with vague interest, watching him drive with barely contained amusement, and staring up at the stars with unrestrained joy. It's been ages since he's seen John properly happy about anything and Rodney hadn't been able to bring himself to say anything that might break the spell, not even to ask how he's liking Earth now that he's out from under Cheyenne Mountain, and had he seen O'Neill's face when Carson mentioned his idea about most Tau'ri with the Ancient gene being descended from John's father?<p>

"About what?" he asks, rolling his eyes as John climbs out of the car without bothering to open the door (or maybe without realizing there is one; Rodney can't be sure) as they pull up to the pump. Just in case it's the latter, he makes a show of opening the driver's side door before getting out, which earns him his own eye roll before-

"About General O'Neill and Colonel Carter."

"They tell you about their transfers earlier then?" At the dinner, O'Neill had announced that, as General Hammond was retiring, he'd be taking over his position, which is about as close as one could say to _I'm being placed in charge of Homeworld Security_ outside the SGC. Then Sam had gone on to say she was being transferred to Area 51 to take over R&D there, although, again, not in so many words, and Doctor Jackson had been so distracted by the knowledge that his team was going their separate ways that he hadn't been able to continue interrogating John about the Ancients, which Rodney had rather assumed had been their plan. It was possible that Sam had told John about it – the possible plan, that is, not the actual transfers – earlier, but Rodney rather doubted it.

"No. Not that."

Frowning, he starts the pump and turns back towards John, who he's discovered has divested himself of his medal-laden jacket and is now trying to open the trunk. Unsuccessfully, Rodney might add. He leans over, presses the release on the dash, and asks, "What then?" as John tosses his jacket inside.

"About them being together."

"Oh," he says around a yawn, wondering if John can be trusted to get him coffee on his own, then blinks as the statement sinks in. "Wait. What? You mean like _together _together?"

"I think so. I kinda _remembered _it while Carter was making me go over," he gestures at what of his dress blues he's still wearing as if to say _my fake identity_. "Or, at least, I thought I remembered it, but you saw them at dinner."

Rodney _had_ seen them at dinner, and nothing had seemed out of the ordinary, at least not where Sam and General O'Neill were concerned. He tells John this, as well as, "They'd be breaking all sorts of fraternization rules if they were, and they're both too professional for that." It's not that he's still pining for Sam – it's really, really not, – but she could do so much better than _Jack O'Neill_ of all people, particularly when doing so would be so detrimental to her career. "And what do you mean you _remembered _it? You'd never even _met_ them until a week ago."

Ignoring the last, "Apparently we break all sorts of rules being together, and that's not stopped us," John points out, closing the trunk lid.

"That's different."

"How so?"

"Because the rules we're breaking are stupid, backwards, and generally at odds with the whole _life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness_ thing this country claims to aspire towards."

John raises an eyebrow. "And Canada's better, I take it?"

"Marginally, I'll admit, but at least our military is enlightened enough not to care who you sleep with so long as you get the job done, unlike the one you've just joined. All the militaries in the world to choose from – literally, all of them – and you choose one where they already have a reason to kick you out if they ever get it into their head that's what they want to do."

"Ah, but they won't do that."

"Oh, really?"

"I'm the Americans' ticket to Atlantis," he says smugly, leaning against the side of the car and crossing his arms. "They see her primarily as a military research base. Once they realize that Atlantis won't turn over her secrets if she's not happy and that I'm an integral part of that happiness, they'll not only never kick me out, they'll fight to keep me.

"'Sides, they're the only ones with the means to get us back to Pegasus."

Rodney hums non-committally, still not convinced that John's not just made a huge mistake by joining the American Air Force. But that's not the important bit. The important bit's, "And, again, what do you mean by _remember_?"

"I spent three-minutes Ascended. I've been _remembering_ random things since, like Everett's team coming through the gate, and now this. I can only guess they were talking about it while I was," he points skyward, the way some people do when talking about _visitors from outer space_.

That is... oddly troubling, to say the least. "Remember anything else?"

"Not yet, but it's not like I've much control over it. It's mostly annoying at this point. Lamest superpower ever..." He glances up at the pump, which has clicked off, then at the car. "Hey, can I drive?"

"You don't even know _how_ to drive," Rodney points out before yawing in spite of himself. He's still not entirely over the week he went without sleep during the siege, and the gate-lag certainly isn't helping, particularly when there are four fewer hours to contend with here.

"I've been watching you. Doesn't look that hard."

"_Look_ being the key word in that sentence."

The pout John gives him in return should probably be physically impossible for a man in uniform to do, but, then again, John's very existence was impossible, so the odds are probably on his side.

"Fine," he says. "But I need coffee first."

* * *

><p>John only stalls once, as they're leaving the filling station. After that, it's smooth sailing all the way towards the I-80.<p>

Rodney, who still can barely manage a puddle jumper, thinks it's patently unfair.

* * *

><p>If he's still awake when they pass through Laramie, it's only because it's hard to fall asleep in a car when it's being driven by someone who'd not seen one outside of the movies until that afternoon.<p>

Still, it's hard to deny that John's an embarrassingly good driver, even if the needle on the dash keeps twitching uncomfortably close to the triple digits, and his tiredness is starting to really sink in, so that Rodney's whole body is heavy with it. He's stopped watching the road nervously, as if John might veer off if he doesn't, and has instead sunk down into his seat, falling into some kind of half-conscious state that neither qualifies as sleeping or waking. John's kept the roof down, and every time Rodney's eyes drift upward he can't help but think how strange the stars he once knew so well suddenly appear.

"Why do you care," he asks at some point during this stretch, "if Sam and General O'Neill are together or not?" It's the only safe thing he can really ask. John won't talk about his Ascension, not if Rodney brings it up first, and talking about their respective meetings with the IOA will only piss both of them off.

"I dunno," John says at length. "It's kinda weird having a nephew that old. At least if its true there's a chance there might one day be a kid I could be a proper uncle to."

Rodney considers pointing out exactly how related to him a niece or nephew four hundred or so generations removed is likely to be, or the likelihood that he could play any significant part in said child's life from the Pegasus galaxy, but decides against it. Instead, "My sister has a kid."

"She does?"

"A daughter, I think."

"What's she like?"

"Like any three-year-old, I guess. I dunno, I've never exactly met her."

With a laugh, "I mean your sister. Jeannie, right?"

"Yeah," Rodney says, somewhat surprised and absurdly pleased John's remembered her name. "I'm probably not the best person to answer that question."

"She's your sister."

"And I've not talked to her since before her kid was born. Hell, I'm not even sure what the kid's name _is_, only that she said something about naming it _Madison, _since it was Mom's maiden name, which is ridiculous way to name a kid." Marginally better than _Meredith,_ Rodney has to admit, but equally ridiculous for a boy _or_ a girl.

"Ah."

"You've no idea what I'm talking about, do you?"

"Not a clue," John admits.

Sighing, "Just trust me, Jeannie may _seem_ like the normal one, but she's just as messed up as the rest of us." Rodney can practically _hear _John's eyebrow lift at that, and continues before he can think better of it, "Well... First, I should say our family life wasn't exactly the greatest. Dad was an automotive engineer – not a very good one, I might add – and was always on the road for one thing or another. Mom was one of those Sixties flower children who ended up selling her soul to Big Business – which, yes, I know means nothing to you, and remind me later to get you some history books. Anyway, their marriage was rocky at the best of times. Lots of shouting, lots of tears. I pretty much spent my entire childhood wishing I was some place else. I think I only went home twice after I left for uni, and only then because I didn't have any other choice in the matter.

"Anyway, Jeannie's eight years younger than me, so when I left for MIT she was barely in kindergarten, and it wasn't exactly like we ever tried too hard to keep in touch. Mom and Dad died right as she was finishing school, though, so I pretty much her guardian from that point on – car accident."

"I'm sorry," John says, looking over and briefly putting a hand on his knee before turning back to the road.

"Don't be. It was a long time ago now and I'd pretty much stopped talking to them after I got the military to fund my schooling.

"But, yeah, I was already working for the Air Force by the time they died. Not for the Stargate program – that really didn't start up until '94 and I didn't even get transferred in until two years later – but in some top secret stuff that kept me in Washington while Jeannie finished up school in Quebec. I ended up pretty much just throwing money her way and encouraging her to study physics.

"She was pretty good at it too. Not like me, obviously, but she could've given Sam a run for her money if she'd stuck with it. Instead she got herself knocked up by an English major, got married, and dropped out of school to take care of the brat. That was about the same time I was transferred to Siberia and, admittedly, I was kinda an ass about the whole thing, so I've not talked to her since. And that was, what? Three, almost four years ago."

"So why are we going to see her now?"

"'Cause," Rodney says, "the last few months have taught me how important family really is, even the ones we're actually related to..." Desperate to change the topic before he says anything that might embarrass him further, though for the life of him he doesn't know why admitting this to John embarrasses him so much, "What about you? What was your family like?"

There's a long pause – so long in fact Rodney thinks John's ignoring the question entirely, like he does most personal questions – then, "My parents never married. Which wasn't unusual, for Alterans. A lot of people never married. We were a lot more open about sex and relationships than your culture seems to be, and it was no big deal for _amatores_ to live together without ever marrying. Or for people to marry and have children with people other than their spouses. Or for anything really, as long as all parties were consenting adults. Even then, Father was somewhat unusual. He had so many _amatores_ that I can't even begin to name them all, even the ones he told me about. As far as I know, I'm his only child, though that probably changed after the Exodus...

"Anyway, Mother was a _legata _on a _linter_ during the war, and her ship was lost when I was very young. Her sister, Catalina, took care of me for a while after that, but she Ascended when I was seven or so, and after that I mostly lived with Father... He used to give me equations to solve while he worked his projects, trying to keep me out of trouble... I don't think he ever really wanted a kid, or that he really knew what to do with one...

"I spent most my childhood exploring Atlantis. I've been a _custodia_ since before I can remember, and made Father let me have the nanoids when I was five so I could talk to her... She's-" John suddenly stops, as if he's just now realized he's talking about his feelings, and swallows audibly. "And, well, yeah," he finishes awkwardly.

"Radek and Teyla won't let anything happen to her," Rodney promises tiredly, shifting in his seat as they plough on through the Wyoming night, because it's the only thing he _can_ do at the moment without making John stop the car.

He doesn't, though, and John says nothing, just continues driving as if he might find whatever it is he's looking for in the action alone.

* * *

><p>Next thing his knows, he's waking up to a red-orange sunrise.<p>

The car's parked and a minute's dazed blinking tells him that John's not in the car with him.

It takes him another minute to realize that they're not at another gas station, but rather parked by the side of the road, on the crest of a hill overlooking a grey-green valley, and John's leaning against the Elise, watching the sunrise like he's never seen the like before.

It's hard to tell with his back to Rodney, but John seems happy.

* * *

><p>Next thing he knows after that, they're in the mountains and he's shaking off the last of a long sleep.<p>

"Hey," he says as he stretches as best he can while buckled in. "Where are we?"

"Oregon, I think. I stopped a while back. Got you coffee," John says, taking a hand off the wheel to point at the cup holder and a small white bag that's balanced curiously there. "It might be cold."

It's not, he's happy to discover. Even more happily, the paper bag contains a small selection of doughnuts, and he doesn't know how John managed to navigate coffee-and-doughnut buying unassisted on his first day out of the SGC, but he doesn't care because, God, it's at moments like this that John seems entirely too good to be true. But, still, if they're in Oregon, "How long was I asleep?"

"Eight hours, give or take."

"How did you manage _that_ in eight hours?"

"Science."

"Science?"

"Science," John repeats dryly.

"That makes absolutely no sense, you know that right?"

John just shrugs.

Rodney drinks his coffee.

* * *

><p>They make it to Vancouver five hours ahead of schedule.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>an: **this makes us caught up with "Fratres et Sorores"; every part of this that comes after, well, occurs after that


	5. Pars Quinque

__Advena__

An Ancient!John Story

* * *

><p><em>Pars Quinque<em>

* * *

><p>Jeannie Miller is both exactly like and unlike her brother. If Iohannes had not been told the same thing about himself and Father, he would not have thought such a thing possible – that two people could be so alike and so different at the same time. She's clearly Rodney's sister (Iohannes knows that the moment he steps on the her porch), but it's more than just genetics. It's how she holds herself, standing in the door obstinately, not so much as to stop Rodney's progress as to protest it. It's in the tilt of her head, questioning, examining, <em>judging<em> Iohannes as he walks up the path to the porch, before he's even near enough to say a word. And, when he reaches the porch, it's in how she's the first one to speak, saying in such a McKay-tone, "So _you're_ the reason Mer's decided to visit."

"Just one of them," he tells her, thinking of Carson and Teyla and Elizabeta and Ford, who is dead and gone and will one day forgotten because he killed him and no one likes to remember that their military commander, their friend, killed a boy barely a man because it was the only thing he could do to save the city he loves. That he can smile at her even as his stomach clenches at the memory probably means something. Probably what Atlantis is always saying about his mental health.

(Iohannes doesn't like Terra, despite it's sunrises and it's doughnuts and it's cars. It leaves him too alone with his thoughts.)

Rodney snorts, as if his answer is somehow funny.

Jeannie gives them both a look that's part amusement and part _you're wasting my time_. It's different, softer and less abrasive, than Rodney's, but it's still very much the same; this thought seems to encompass everything about Rodney's sister that there is to say.

It's sort of fascinating really.

"Jeannie, John Sheppard. John, my sister Jeannie," Rodney says impatiently. "Now, can we go inside? Like I said, this probably isn't a porch conversation. Unless you _want_ to have it out on the open where the all the neighbours can overhear?"

She flushes at this (enough to make Iohannes wonder if there's a story behind this comment, and, if so, what it might be) and she suddenly looks less like an imposing off-world chieftainess wearily granting them access to her people's sacred places and more like, well, someone's sister being teased by her elder brother. "Yes. Sorry. Come on in," she says, waving them inside. "It's a little messy, but we weren't exactly expecting visitors today." She ushered them into the living room, practically forcing the pair of them to sit on the couch while she took the chair nearest. "I'd offer coffee or tea or something, but I'm half afraid you'll both disappear if I do. So. Explain."

"Now you're just being ridiculous. We drove fifteen hundred miles to see you; we're hardly going leave if you go off and make coffee."

"Why?"

"Well, the Air Force wouldn't loan us a plane and John gets all antsy when someone else flies – can't say I blame him, with the state of public transportation being what it is these days, so-"

"No, not _why did you drive_, you idiot. Why are you _here_? Though, now that you mention it..." she turns sharply towards Iohannes, who is doing what he usually does during negotiations with the locals, which is to say, trying to stay out of the way, "Why would you think the Air Force would lend you an airplane?"

He raises a hand in greeting. "Major John Sheppard, United States Air Force."

"Oh my God," Jeannie says, suddenly standing, her skirt swirling about her as she turns towards the windows worriedly. "You're defecting, aren't you? Or whatever it is you call it when you stop working for the government of a country you don't belong to. _That's_ why you didn't want to talk outside. How much trouble are you in, exactly? Do you need money? No, of course not," she walks over to the nearest window and closes the curtains, but not before glancing suspiciously out. "What do you need me to tell the police-?"

"Jeannie-" Rodney says loudly, clearly not having expected this reaction and darting his eyes towards Iohannes as if to say _well, do something_.

Iohannes raises an eyebrow at him.

"You'll need to get out of the country. Somewhere the States don't have an extradition treaty with. Like Russia. I'm pretty sure they don't have a treaty with Russia. You took Russian in college, didn't you?"

"Jeannie-" Rodney says more loudly still.

"So at least the language won't be a problem. But first we'll need to-"

"Jeannie!"

"Yes, Meredith, what?"

"I'm not on the run."

"You're not?" she says, looking visibly relieved and not a little flustered as she sinks back into her chair.

"No. Of course not. Why would you think that?"

"Oh, I dunno, Mer. You suddenly show up on my door after three-and-half-years – no call, no letter, no _anything –_ and then claim to have driven half-way across the country with your American military _boyfriend_ complaining about public transportation, and, the last time I talked to you, you were doing something beyond secret for the American military. _Of__course_ I think you're on the run."

"That's just..." Rodney huffs, trying not to look pleased that his sister apparently still cared about him enough, after three-and-a-half years of silence, to want to help him out of the country if he needed it, "Well, I can see where you might get that impression. Though I don't know what you think John being in the military has to do with that."

"Well, he's your boyfriend isn't he?"

"If you insist on labelling things, then, well, yes."

"And he can't admit to such without being thrown out, so either he doesn't care any more or they're changing the laws. And since the latter would have been all over the news..."

"...you thought the most likely scenario was that we were on the run," Rodney finishes with a derisive snort, all earlier tenderness forgotten.

"It was either that or that you've terminal cancer."

If his snort had been derisive, Rodney's response to this was positively cutting. "Y'know, it's probably a good thing now that I think about it that you never finished your doctorate. You'd have been a second-rate physicist at best with the way you keep jumping to conclusions. Next thing you know you'll be trying to convince us that the world really is flat, and the Earth doesn't revolve around the Sun after all."

This faintly alarms Iohannes (had the Terrans ever believed such things?), enough so that he misses the beginning of Jeannie's next outburst e+ntirely, not really paying attention until she gets as far as, "..._supposed _to think? The only reason I never thought you were dead is I assumed that those, those _merchants of death_ you work for would bother to tell me if you went and got yourself _blown up_-"

Then it's as if Iohannes has no choice, as if there's a direct line between his mind and his mouth, _he has to say something. _And maybe at some later time he'll think about it about how everything about Rodney makes him forget the barriers he put up long ago (the ones that kept him from believing any promise Father ever said, until he stopped bothering to make them; the ones that kept him from accepting any of the advances Nicolaa ever made, until she went and married Tomas Nauta instead; the ones that would keep him now from getting involved in an argument between Rodney and his sister, until it ended on its own). But, right now, none of that matters, _he has to say something_, and what he _does_ say is, "I'd never let that happen."

Which seems to succeed at nothing so much as turning Rodney's ire on him, as he snaps, "Can we _not_ talk about your self-destructive tendencies right now?"

Iohannes holds up both of his hands conciliatorily, but can't help pointing out, "It needed to be done."

"By you?"

"Better than someone else."

Rodney looks like he wants to say something for the longest time, balling his hands into fists at his sides in visible effort to contain himself.

He's heard Rodney say he's a terrible liar, but that's just not true. From what he knows about Rodney's pre-Atlantis work, he's been keeping secrets as part of his job for almost half his life. And, yes, he might babble when he's afraid and say things he shouldn't about nuclear weapons, but it's a different story entirely when he's angry. Rodney always knows exactly what he's saying when he's angry and exactly how to say it. It's one of the reasons why, for all he likes riling Rodney up, Iohannes tries to avoid real fights with him.

After what feels like forever, Rodney suddenly forces one hand out of a ball and reaches across, grabbing one of Iohannes' hands, which he'd been awkwardly holding in his lap. It's not something they usually do, the hand-holding, but Iohannes figures that he's just as uncomfortable thinking about the final days of the siege as he is and lets him, trying to ignore the heat rising in his cheeks.

"I-" Rodney begins, looking back at his sister, who's watching them with a curious, half-fond, half-surprised look. "Well, as you've probably guessed, things were... bad for a while where we were, and, yes, we very nearly got blown up – some of us," his eyes dart back towards Iohannes, who rolls his own, "more than others – and, well, I'd a lot of time to think about it and I really didn't want the last thing you ever heard from me to be a half-censored tape delivered to you by men in suits, and, well, that's why I'm here – why we're here. 'Cause I wanted you to meet John too. 'Cause I know it's stupid, but I didn't want to die without telling you were right. Not about the _dropping out of school_ thing, that was just plain stupid, what with how close you were to your doctorate, even if you were pregnant. But about the whole _can't help who you love, even if they're an English major _thing, and, well, I'm sorry."

* * *

><p><strong>an**: this takes place shortly after the drabble "Fratres et Sorores"


	6. Pars Sex

__Advena__

An Ancient!John Story

* * *

><p><em>Pars Sex<em>

* * *

><p>It's their seventh day – and closing in on their seventh night – in Vancouver when Rodney walks out of his sister's kitchen to see John standing by the front window in the living room and peering out it in a way that screams more <em>we're being surrounded by hostile natives<em> than _I'm spying on the neighbours_. They've plans to leave the day after tomorrow, to head south to Area 51 so the scientists there can pester John about the bits of Ancient tech they've yet to identify, and his sister and her husband are using the opportunity to have a night out while he and John watch Madison. Not that Rodney's doing most of the watching. He leaves that to John, who he's discovered, much to his surprise, to be curiously good with children.

Not that John's doing much watching at the moment – at least, not of Madison, who's sprawled on the couch, very much asleep. He doesn't even turn around when Rodney comes out of the kitchen, though the light that pours through the door is far too bright for the darkened room, illuminated only by the flickering of _Finding Nemo_ on the turned-down TV.

"John?" he asks, not knowing whether to be worried or amused by this latest behaviour. (During their foray into the local mall to get John clothing that wasn't US military issue, he'd been forced to explain both the purpose and the internal workings of the washing machines on display without making it obvious to anyone who might be listening that's what he was doing. And Rodney doesn't even _want_ to think about the explanations that had been required in Barnes & Noble that had resulted in the purchase of almost five hundred dollars in history and political science books.) "Something wrong?"

John doesn't turn around, just makes a gesture they use in the field that means roughly _quiet_ and _enemy contacts _and _safeties off_, which is vaguely alarming considering the most malicious elements Rodney has found in Vancouver since arriving at Jeannie's so far have been her elderly next door neighbour, Mrs. Chase, who never cleans up after her dog, and a bizarre traffic pattern somehow related to preparations for the Olympics that are to be held here five years hence. And, while annoying, neither exactly qualify as _enemy contacts_.

"John?"

He makes a _come here, see_ gesture this time, and so that's exactly what he does, John carefully stepping back so Rodney can take his place, then leaning in close enough that his breath is warm against his ear when he whispers, "That car. The black one, parked on the corner."

Rodney looks. It's not so much a _black car_ as as a _black SUV_, the kind you always see gangsters and government agents driving in movies.

"It's been there," he continues, "since almost the moment Kaleb and Jeannie left."

"That's almost three hours," Rodney mutters.

"I know."

"And it's not just the neighbours?"

"They have a red car, one with an _H _decal, and they left yesterday afternoon, all three of them together."

Stepping back from the window, "Do I want to know how you know this?"

"I notice things."

"There are so many things I could say to that."

"That's just hurtful."

"Says the man who can barely remember to open doors."

John gives a bark of laughter, one that has both their eyes darting towards Madison, who, luckily, sleeps straight through it. "It's not my fault," he says more quietly still, so Rodney has to strain to hear him, even though there can't be an inch between them, "that your planet is so backwards."

"You're the one who put us here."

"Again, not personally responsible for the failings of my entire race."

Frowning, "You consider humanity to be a _failing_?"

"Hardly," John says dryly. "I just wish you'd build proper doors."

"There is something seriously wrong with you, you realize that, don't you?"

He feels the other man shrug behind him. "So they tell me. But that doesn't change the fact that a strange car's been parked outside for almost three hours in the best spot on the street to see everything without being seen yourself."

"I think you're overreacting." The SGC probably has surveillance on them – on John, the last Ancient in two galaxies and their meal ticket to unlocking the secrets of the universe, if only they can get John to realize that Earthlings, despite appearances, don't actually already know them. So what if he doesn't know the science? Being able to do the maths is half the battle, and leaves Rodney with something interesting to do – here. The SUV's probably theirs. Who outside the SGC knows – or cares – they're here?

"I'm going out there."

"And doing what?" Rodney snorts. "Tapping on the window and asking if they're NID or VPD or CSIS or some other governmental alphabet soup agency?"

"Something like that," he says, which probably means that's exactly what he's planning on doing, and that he's not the slightest clue what the NID or CSIS might be, let alone what the difference is between them.

"And if they're not friendly?" the SGC wouldn't issue John a gun for the trip, saying they were having enough bureaucratic issues with the Atlantis Expedition – something about the EU and Commonwealth nations wanting a share of technology and personnel more commensurate to their financial contributions to the IOA (read: larger) – without sending an armed American Air Force officer across country lines.

"I'll figure something out."

"John-"

"It'll only take a second. Be right-"

Rodney grabs his arm as John turns for the door. "This isn't the Pegasus galaxy," he says, caught for a moment by the Ancient's too-intense stare. "We're not alone here, and..." He pulls his cell phone out of his pocket, hitting the speed dial that takes him straight through to the SGC's emergency phone line, "...there is such a thing as backup."

* * *

><p>It turns out the a couple of the IOA representatives – the British, Canadian, and Australian ones in particular – didn't like the idea of an alien running around their territories unwatched. Rodney rather thinks it has less to do with John being an alien and more to do with the fact that, of the two officers the Marines had sent to Pegasus originally, both were dead by John's hand before the end of the first year of the Expedition, but refrains from mentioning this to John, who takes the news with what seems like causal aplomb, shrugging it off like nothing <em>these Terrans<em> do actually matters to him. Instead, he sits at the floor in front of the couch and pulls of his notebook – the one he's doing all the equations in – and opens it to a blank page, staring at it unseeingly for the longest time. His hands clench at his sides, hidden almost completely from sight by the coffee table, like he's fighting the urge to hit something, but other than that he looks exactly like a man trying to write up a grocery list, or something like.

Rodney does the only thing he can do: he turns off the TV, grabs his computer, and takes a seat next to him. "So, we've two weeks – three tops – before the _Daedalus _arrives to take us home. Which means we've twenty-one days at most for you to finish your proof to the Riemann Hypothesis in time for it to be reviewed and published before the end of the year, so you can qualify for next year's Fields Medal, and while technically you'll still qualify with the birth date they cooked up for you for the 2010 prize, I hold out hope for you that by then we can have you on track for a proper Nobel. Something easy – medicine maybe."

John leans his head back against the couch and groans.

"I'm sorry, but, frankly, when they finally declassify the Stargate Program and I get the recognition I deserve, I'd rather spend the after-party talking about my discoveries than having to constantly explain to people that, yes, you do have a brain."

"Then don't."

"Well I'm sorry if I'm ruining your plans to pretend to be just another idiot flyboy, but the fact is you're not, so get over it and explain this proof to me so I can write it up for you."

* * *

><p>John's <em>liberated<em> a chair from the dining room and is sitting it in, backwards, about three feet from the television in his sister's living room when said sister and her husband arrive back from their date some two hours later. He's determinedly trying to suss out the plot of _Doctor Strangelove_ with his very limited knowledge of the Cold War. During the commercials, he's explaining his proof to Rodney, who's still sitting in front of the couch, laptop actually balanced in his lap, trying to type up the monograph he'll need to submit to the the Clay Mathematics Institute if he ever wants to prove John's solved one of the Millennium Prize Problems. John's still not too keen on the idea, but he's willing to let Rodney write it up in his name in exchange for assistance avoiding Doctor Jackson when they're at Area 51, which Rodney would have given anyway, so it all works out.

"Well," Jeannie says, "I guess it was too much to hope that two grown men could manage to put a three-year-old to bed on their own."

"She's in her pajamas and her teeth are brushed," John says absently, frowning at the TV,

Rodney, however, does look up from his computer. "I tried, but she has John wrapped around her little finger."

"And he," Jeannie says, sitting down on the floor next to him while Kaleb gathers up Madison, "has you wrapped around his."

He tries snorting derisively at this – the kind of snort he saves for Kavanaugh's more preposterous ideas – but it comes out all wrong, not quite qualifying as a bark of laugher (it's too soft for that) and a few decibels too much to count as a _what can you do?_ sigh. Feeling he has no other option after such a pathetic showing, he hits save and passes over the laptop. "Tell me how this sounds so far."

Jeannie gives him a curious look and does as he asks.

Two minutes in she says, "Is this what I think it is?"

"Depends on what you think it is."

"But you're an astrophysicist."

"It's not mine."

"Then who's is it?"

Rodney tilts his head towards John, who's still frowning at the television screen.

"But he's a pilot. A _military_ pilot."

"Karl Schwarzchild derived his solution Einstein's field equations while an artillery lieutenant on the eastern front during World War One."

"Schwarzchild is a special case and you know it."

"So's John."

"How so?"

"John's..." Rodney trails off, unable to find a word that comes anywhere near describing the miracle that is John. Because John shouldn't exist.

(It's not just that he should be dead so many times over with what they know about Alteran stasis technology and the wounds he'd been suffering from when they found him. It's not even his propensity for throwing himself into situations where the best case scenario is that they'll find all of the pieces he'll be blown into at the end of the day. No, its the way John can even _smile_ after having to live his_ entire life_ in a city under Siege by the Wraith and then wake up ten thousand years later to fight the same enemy, knowing that they were stronger than ever; the way he's anything less than a sociopath after being raised more by a sentient city with more personality disorders than rooms than by the father who apparently drilled it into his head that his life meant nothing if he isn't willing to do whatever is necessary to do what needs to be done.)

"..it's classified," he finishes unsatisfactorily.

It's her turn to snort, but goes back to reading the proof without questioning further.

* * *

><p>Two days later, they're just on the American side of the border, heading for Area 51, when John says apropos of nothing in particular, "Terra is strange."<p>

"But you like it?"

"When we've not been underground? Yeah, I think so."


End file.
